How Does the CIA Know If Its Intel Is Any Good? On Sunday, the website Wikileaks published more than 91,000 military documents from the war in Afghanistan, among them reports alleging that Pakistan’s top military intelligence service is aiding Taliban fighters. The Pakistani government has claimed that the documents are based on inaccurate field reports that neither it nor U.S. intelligence agencies are taking seriously. So how do intelligence analysts determine whether reports are credible or not?

Arab Intelligence Agencies Too Busy Protecting Regimes to be Effective. Even the wave of arrests in Lebanon over the last year of those accused of being “Mossad agents” does not change Wilhelm Dietl’s opinion that “the Arab intelligence agencies, including that of Lebanon, are ineffective.” . . . The Arab agencies see their primary task as preserving the regime or the leader and therefore, they are cruel and without limits. They are above the law; they are the law itself. They see themselves as a divine entity.